The Connected Home

For tens of millions in the U.S. alone, our video entertainment is spread across as many as five different apps on at least two different hardware ecosystems and costs us about $120-140 per month:

There is no single interface to discover across all this content. It’s like the web before search. -Via techcrunch.com ​

Next year, Hulu will join the likes of Sling TV and PlayStation Vue with a streaming bundle of live TV channels.

While Hulu hasn’t said much about how the service will work, the price is rumored to be around $40 per month. Many channels will likely come from Hulu’s corporate backers, including Disney, Fox, and NBCUniversal.

What we’ve heard so far doesn’t sound much different from the “skinny bundles” that exist already. Still, Hulu’s existing service—and its ties to big TV networks—put the company in a unique position to replace the cable bundle. Here’s where a Hulu TV bundle could go right—and where it might go sideways. Read More...

More than a year after Disney-owned ESPN sued Verizon FiOS for not including the expensive sports network in the core channels of its so-called “skinny bundles” — and three months after Verizon brought ESPN back into the fold (while also reducing the number of skinny bundle options available to FiOS subscribers), the two companies have made nice and settled their lawsuit.

When FiOS launched the skinny bundle model in early 2015, it offered pay-TV customers something almost resembling a build-your-own cable package: pay $55 for a core package of a few dozen basic cable channels (but no ESPN), then pick and choose from niche-targeted add-on bundles of around 10 channels each. The $55 base price included two add-on bundles at no extra charge, so in theory customers who wanted ESPN did not have to pay extra for it.

Regardless, ESPN contended that by omitting the channel — which is estimated to represent at least $5/month of your basic cable bill — from the mandatory core that every subscriber receives, Verizon was in violation of its contract with the sports network. via cosumerist.com

Traditional cable programmers are coming to a strategic crossroads when it comes to navigating the emerging world of OTT channel distribution, Discovery Communications president-CEO David Zaslav said Thursday during his keynote address at Variety’s Entertainment and Technology Summit in New York.

Zaslav was asked about the burst of activity among digital entrants into the traditional pay TV business of channel bundling. Hulu and YouTube are readying a big push to offer smaller channel bundles via streaming to cost-conscious consumers. Zaslav said Discovery has been in conversations with every major player in the market for high-end programming.

At the same time, Zaslav also noted that the experience with a greater variety of channel packages and options has shown that viewers typically lean toward the larger bundles. “In the last 10 years there’s been a lot of attempts at smaller packages and the uptick has been small.” ​Via variety.com

There will be a lot of changes and challenges in the entertainment world adn those who bring it to us. We at the Connected Home are determined to play our part in helping you get the best choice of system installed in your home or office. We install Dish Tv, DirectTV and all the Cable and DSL providers there are in Minnesota.

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